


The Faith Inside Me

by Crowgirl



Series: Scars Remind Us [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Rain, Season 3 Spoilers, Season 4 Spoilers, Wings, mention of Hell, mention of sexual trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-11
Updated: 2011-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-24 12:15:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ongoing discussion, and ramifications thereof, between Dean and Castiel about the after-effects of Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Faith Inside Me

VII.

Castiel holds him while he vomits and it starts to rain, cold, hard drops wetting them both. Castiel slips off the worn old trench coat and drapes it over Dean, almost like a tent over the younger man. He touches Dean’s cheek, trying to get the beautiful green eyes to focus on him. ‘Dean...Dean...listen to me. Hear my voice, Dean. It is not happening – what you feel – what you remember is _not_ real. It is a memory – a bad memory – a bad dream.’ Castiel keeps Dean from falling, lets him down to the ground gently, holds him. ‘A bad dream, Dean. That is all. A bad dream.’ He cradles Dean against his shoulder, ignoring his former compunction about touch.

Dean is shaking, muscles knotted tight, and he has retched until all he can do is cough and spit. Dean is crying, Castiel can feel it, and there is nothing he can do to fix what he has done this time.

Castiel leans forward, resting his forehead on the back of Dean’s neck, trying to soothe Dean with his own steady, even breathing, but he does not think Dean is paying attention. The rain is cold on his back, soaking quickly through his jacket and shirt and, without much conscious thought on his part, he lets his wings unfold around Dean, shielding him from the worst of the downpour.

Dean huddles against him, fingers knotted in his shirt, and Castiel wraps his arms over his shoulders, pulling the trench coat tight around him.

Cold water is pouring off his wing feathers and Castiel can feel the ground becoming wet under his knees. If they stay here much longer, they will be in their own personal mud puddle. Dean is in a heap, half against Castiel, half on the ground. He does not think the younger man has any idea how cold and wet he is becoming despite Castiel’s best efforts to protect him. ‘Dean. Dean, can you stand?’

There is a loud crack of thunder overhead and the night is abruptly stark white with lightning.

Dean jerks and stares up as if the storm were attacking him personally.

‘Dean, come with me--’ Castiel crouches, wings wide above them, his hands on Dean’s arms, trying to urge him to his feet. Slowly, Dean stumbles up, swaying slightly. He looks wounded and small, his body rounded forward, as if he would prefer to fold in on himself and vanish.

Castiel wants to raise Alastair and kill him all over again – perhaps a few times over. He is sure there are more inventive ways to dispatch the demon than mere exorcism. Perhaps there are some of Alastair’s followers still roaming the world; he is sure he could find them. They deserve to suffer for what they have done.

But right now he needs to get Dean indoors and warm and safe.

‘Dean, come on. The storm is getting worse.’ Castiel puts his arm around Dean’s shoulders, folding his wings again, trying not to think how many times he had thought of doing this in other circumstances, and urges him forward. Dean takes a step, then another, then stumbles on a rough piece of earth and does not seem to know how to right himself. ‘I will not fall, Dean. Lean on me.’

They reach the house slowly and are thoroughly drenched by the time they get there.

Castiel stretches towards Sam and Bobby with a fragment of his Grace and deepens their sleep, giving them each a sweet dream to lose themselves in: Sam plays with Dean in the backyard of their childhood home, shouting as they lose the ball from their game in a bush; Bobby gardens with his wife, her dark hair shining in the summer sun, talking about what they are going to make for dinner.

Dean stops at the bottom of the porch steps, silhouetted against the dim light coming through the window in the door, looking up at them as if they are insurmountable. ‘I...Cas...’ He turns back and looks blankly at the angel as if he can't quite remember who he is.

‘I am here, Dean.’

‘I can’t...’ His throat convulses and he swallows hard. ‘Why ...why didn’t I remember before?’

‘I do not know, Dean. I thought you had. I am...I am so sorry.’ Castiel feels the shallowness of language as never before. He touches Dean’s cheek, stroking away something that might be tears or might be rain. ‘I should have found you sooner.’

‘But..how did you know?’ Dean’s eyes are suddenly bright, sparkling green in a flash of lightning.

Castiel hesitates.

‘Cas. How did you know.’

The rain has soaked entirely through Castiel’s clothes; he can feel it runnelling cold down his spine, soaking his shoulders.

 __

 _...light sound color pain..._

 _...heat enough to singe his wings and the screaming – the never ending screaming – how can anyone stand this? isn’t the searing pain that radiates from the very ground enough to send anyone, damned soul or demon, hurtling into oblivion?..._

 _...light sound color pain sound – that’s the sound! The sound – the feel in his Grace he has been looking for!_

 _...light sound color pain heat...bodies twisting, agony, blood...he can feel agony, hatred, desire to hurt – and desire to be hurt, ecstasy in pain and nothing but pain..._

 _...light sound color pain..._

Another flash of lightning shows him Dean’s face clearly again, now, drawn and white as if he might faint. Castiel reaches out to steady the younger man but Dean draws away, looking at Castiel as if he does not quite trust him. ‘What did you see?’

‘Dean--’

‘ _Tell me,_ Cas.’

Castiel curses, words in Sumerian that would have once raised mountains. Here they do little more than cause a gust of cold wind. ‘You were not yourself, Dean!’

Dean sits down with a sharp, damp thud on the lowest porch step and drops his head between his knees.

Castiel kneels in front of him, one hand on each of Dean’s knees. ‘Dean, please, look at me – that was not you – you would not – I have seen you with your lovers and you are not like that!’

‘Oh, Jesus...’ Dean covers his face with his hands.

‘Dean, please!’ Castiel ducks, desperate to see Dean’s face. ‘Please – you must understand – what happened to you – I have seen it happen to others and they have not survived and you have.’

‘Great! Awesome! Fucking _fan_ tastic!’ Dean spreads out his arms and bellows into the wind: ‘Dean Winchester, world’s only survivor of a demonic gang-bang!’

Castiel winces.

Dean drops his head in his hands again, fingers digging roughly at the base of his skull. ‘Fucking hell...’ His voice comes out muffled. ‘It’s like a bad fucking dream.’

‘That is all it is now, Dean – you will never go back there. Alastair can never touch you again--’

‘It doesn’t matter much, does it?’ Dean stands up abruptly, nearly overbalancing Cas into the mud. He flicks wet hair out of his eyes with a quick backward jerk of his hand, glaring at Cas in another flash of lightning. ‘I remember it all anyways. My own fuckin’ brain’s a goddamned traitor!’

‘Dean--’

‘You can’t lie to me, Cas. I know what I remember.’

Castiel sits back on his heels, feeling his shoes slowly fill with water, dropping his gaze to the wooden steps behind Dean’s knees, the pile of his coat where it slipped off Dean's shoulders. He give anything, literally anything he possesses now or ever has possessed in any vessel, not to hear the words he is sure Dean is going to say next.

‘I remember I fuckin’ _loved_ it.’ Dean’s voice is ragged, rough at the edges, full of a self-loathing Castiel would kill to be able to remove. He thinks distantly that Dean is going to start to cry again and that might be the end of Castiel. ‘I remember the blood and the pain and the knives and how it all felt and... _fuck,_ Cas!’

Castiel shoots to his feet, water running down his sleeves and off the ends of his hair, and grabs Dean’s arms, shaking him. ‘You are not like that! I _know_ you! I have watched you! You would _never_ hurt someone like that, not for pleasure!’

‘But I _did_...’ Dean’s voice breaks and he can’t look Castiel in the eye. Instead he looks down at his hands as if looking for some signs of what he has done. There is nothing, just rain and mud. ‘I did it to them and they...did it to me...and...’ He shudders, full-body, muscles contracting and jerking against the cold, against the remembered pain.

Castiel refocuses on the immediate need. ‘Come inside, Dean. Nothing will be served by you getting the flu like your brother.’

Dean takes a step up, backwards, onto the lowest step, but holds out a hand against Castiel’s shoulder, keeping him on the ground. ‘Don’t. Don’t come with me. I don’t...what if I...I can’t...’

Castiel can see his face steadily now by the light from the hallway. Dean is pale, his eyes dark hollows, his lips bitten nearly to blood. He has to struggle to think what the right response is, what the _appropriate_ response is, rather than just grabbing Dean and holding him until the pain is gone.

‘I don’t want to hurt you, too.’ Dean’s voice is barely a rasp, but the words are audible.

Castiel wants to start swearing again, wants to raise mountains, cascade rivers out of their beds, break forests down, blast new deserts. Alastair’s soul has to be somewhere and it will _suffer_ for this. He clenches his hands into fists and forces himself to breathe. There is a right response here somewhere, he knows it. ‘Dean, I am not afraid of you. You will not hurt me. I am worried that you will become ill if you stay out here much longer.’

Dean looks up at the sky as if it has just occurred to him that it is raining. The drops shine on his skin in the dim light, making him sparkle a little as he moves. ‘I’ll go in. I promise. I’ll go in and have a shower and...and I won’t slash my wrists in the kitchen or drown myself in the bathtub. I swear, Cas. But...just...please. Don’t come with me.’

Castiel feels something sharp twist in his chest. For a minute, it hurts more than he thinks he can stand and he cannot breathe. Then, just as abruptly, it eases and he nods, silently.

Dean nods and turns to walk up the steps. He moves like an old man, slowly and stiffly, putting both feet on each step before taking the next. Each movement seems to require attention and care if he is not to fall.

‘Dean.’ The word comes out before he can think and Dean stops, but does not turn back. ‘If...if you need me.’

‘Angel telephone.’ Dean holds up one hand in the rough shape of a phone receiver and waggles it. ‘Got it.’ He takes the last few steps and vanishes into the house.

Castiel lingers a last moment to ensure that Bobby and Sam still sleep soundly – no-one will wake to ask Dean awkward questions – then picks up his sodden coat, spreads his wings, and is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Evil Angel," Breaking Benjamin, _Phobia._
> 
> Additional: I want to thank the folks who have been kudos'ing and commenting and bookmarking because seriously? I thought I'd put this up here and _no-one_ would ever read it. You are all awesome.
> 
> I feel I should also make a disclaimer at this point: I came late to _Supernatural_ \-- only discovered it a year or so ago due to a DVD set sale at Best Buy -- and I'm about 2.5 seasons behind. So I'm sure my continuity is...well, probably not all that continuous. My normal rule is not to write anything 'til I've seen the canon but I seriously just could not put this idea down. Think of it as an (unintentional) AU, if that helps!


End file.
